(i) Technical Field
The present invention relates to a charging member contamination determining device.
(ii) Related Art
As an image forming apparatus having a function of forming an image on a recording material such as a sheet, a copier, a printer, a facsimile and a multifunction device having these functions have been proposed.
In such an image forming apparatus, developer in which toner is mixed with carrier and charging accelerator is used. For example, in a developing unit provided in the image forming apparatus, the toner in the developer contained in a container is attached to a developing roller, and the toner is carried onto a photoconductor drum by rotation of the developing roller, so that an electrostatic latent image formed on the photoconductor drum is developed by the toner. The toner image on the photoconductor drum is transferred onto a recording material through an intermediate image transfer belt.
The photoconductor drum is a member to be charged having a structure that is charged by a charging member provided in contact with or close to the photoconductor drum. If the charging member is contaminated due to attachment of the toner or the like, the member to be charged is not charged with a uniform electric potential, and as a result, there is a concern that an error such as density unevenness or stripes may occur in an output image.
Here, with respect to determination of the state of the charging member, various techniques have been proposed.